Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Britain to censor ADULT access to porn

The do-gooders usually say that censorship of porn is "for the children" but Left-run Britain seems to feel no need for that pretence.

"To some people it is exactly the kind of protective legislation that Britain needs in a world where access to a vast array of pornography is available at the click of a mouse. To others, a new law banning "extreme" pornography gives the Government unprecedented powers to police bedrooms (and basements).

Critics, including at least two lords, say that legislation coming into force next month forbidding the possession of "an extreme pornographic image" will criminalise thousands of previously law-abiding people who have a harmless taste for unconventional sex."

They seem to be embarrassed about it though. Embarrassed enough to lie -- like the scum they are.

"A few weeks ago I reported on an incident at UNC-Wilmington involving the punishment of a fraternity for the brief display of a banner, which included a small representation of a Confederate Flag. I referred to the fraternity with a pseudonym (Alpha Epsilon Sigma) in order to respect their wishes to avoid turning the conflict into a major news story. Now that the fraternity has reconsidered and decided to fight UNCW I am free to refer to the fraternity by its real name, Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

In my previous column, I asked readers around the country to a) write a donation to UNCW in the amount of $.02, and b) demand a receipt via mail. This was done to make sure the university paid a $.40 fine (two cents minus forty-two cents for a stamp) to all of my readers who were offended by a public university that punishes constitutionally protected activity as so-called hate speech.

Just a few days before Christmas UNCW started to mail back checks with the following form response: "We have received your check in response to the alleged Confederate Flag incident. You have been misinformed. We are returning your check because no fraternity or other student organization has been suspended due to a display of a Confederate Flag. Thank you."

In other words, the university is accusing me of lying. They are also indirectly accusing my three sources - two officers of SAE and their chapter advisor - of lying. But anyone familiar with UNCW knows we are all telling the truth and, as usual, the administration is the party guilty of deception.

This kind of dishonesty among university administrators has become a serious problem. First, the university enacts speech codes, which clearly violate the First Amendment. Second, the university selectively enforces the codes in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, they top it all off by lying to the public and falsely accusing their students and faculty of lying.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

UK: Web sites could be given "cinema-style age ratings"

The first step to government control and censorship?

"In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Andy Burnham says he believes that new standards of decency need to be applied to the web. He is planning to negotiate with Barack Obama's incoming American administration to draw up new international rules for English language websites. The Cabinet minister describes the internet as `quite a dangerous place' and says he wants internet-service providers (ISPs) to offer parents `child-safe' web services."

They have decided that it is really "Islamophobia" that is the problem and ignore the antisemitism that they are supposed to be studying

"At a time when Jew haters in the Islamic world have become more assertive than ever, Berlin's Center for Research on Anti-Semitism is concentrating on a different group: the "new enemies of Islam." Who exactly belongs to this category is not clear from the center's latest publication, the "Yearbook for Research on Anti-Semitism." But the potential danger is supposedly known: "The fury of the new enemies of Islam is similar to the older rage of anti-Semites against the Jews," writes Prof. Wolfgang Benz, the institute's director...

It is certainly necessary to oppose the demonization of Muslims and discrimination against them, which often have racist motivations. The Berlin center, whose research covers prejudices in general, is right to address this issue. The problem lies in the way it is being done. The Berlin center adopts the neologism "Islamophobia" without any reservation. This term is misleading because it mixes two different phenomena -- unjust hatred against Muslims and necessary criticism of political Islam -- and condemns both equally....

In taking up the fashionable vocabulary of Islamophobia and equating hostility to Muslims with hostility to Jews, the center also risks undermining the most important current task in dealing with anti-Semitism: studying and fighting hostility to Jews in the Islamic world, where anti-Semitism has reached an unprecedented level. For example, one of the authors in the latest Yearbook, Jochen Mueller, proposes a "revision of politics and history teaching" in German schools. Because the Holocaust has no "central meaning for migrants from the Arabic-Muslim world," one should consider whether "the colonial period and its consequences" would not be a better subject for "appropriate 'Holocaust education'" among Muslim students in Germany. This is a remarkable idea given the degree of Holocaust denial among many young Muslims.

Another article in the Yearbook, "Hostility to Islam on the World Wide Web," goes even further. Instead of criticizing anti-Semitism among Muslims, the author criticizes those who accuse Muslims of anti-Semitism.... Here, attempts to fight "hostility to Islam" threaten to turn into tolerance of anti-Semitic attitudes.

While the Berlin center concentrates on world-wide "anti-Islamic resentments," its Yearbook says not a word about the anti-Semitism of the Iranian mullahs. Thus, it hardly does justice to the demands for contemporary research on anti-Semitism. Never before has the elimination of the Jewish state been so loudly propagated. Never before has an influential power made Holocaust denial the center of its foreign policy, as Iran has today. Never before has a U.N. forum been misused for an anti-Semitic speech, as it was on Sept. 23 by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier criticized the speech as "blatantly anti-Semitic."

Monday, December 29, 2008

How to talk about Presidential exercise

If a Republican President does "keep fit" exercises, that is contemptible and dangerous. If a Democrat President-to-be does "keep fit" exercises, the sun shines out of his rear end. Doubt me? Michelle Malkin has the quotes.

"The chairman of the Republican National Committee on Saturday admonished one of his potential successors for giving members a CD featuring a song called Barack the Magic Negro. Chip Saltsman, who is seeking the RNC chairmanship, sent committee members a 41-track CD by conservative comedian Paul Shanklin as part of his Christmas message to committee members. The CD includes the controversial song about US president-elect Barack Obama.

The ditty originated on conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh's radio program in reference to a March 2007 opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times by David Ehrenstein headlined "Obama the 'Magic Negro"'. In the article, Ehrenstein argued that voting for Obama helped white voters alleviate guilt over racial wrongs in the past. Shanklin's parody is sung to the music of the Puff, the Magic Dragon.

Limbaugh has insisted that the song was a parody to prove a point about liberal white voters. "I can tell you think the term 'Negro' is inappropriate, that it's old hat and shouldn't be used, that it's divisive and this sort of thing, and you may have a point," Limbaugh told a caller objecting to the song in March 2007, according to show transcripts. "But remember what we do on this program: We illustrate absurdity by being absurd."

Once upon a time, when the world was saner than it is now, it was possible to discuss race in a scientific and non-hysterical way. At that time "negro" was the usual term for a black African. Nowadays, however, only Leftists are allowed to use the word, apparently. The correct scientific term at the moment seems to be "Sub-Saharan African". But "Barack the magic sub-Saharan African" lacks something. As Louis Armstrong was wont to say: "It don't mean a thing if it aint got that swing".

One could argue that Obama is only half negro but the current American custom seems to be to have only the one category of blacks, even if there seems to be a lot of milk in the coffee for some of them. In faroff days, Obama would have been referred to as a "half caste" or a "mulatto" but those perfectly accurate terms seem to be "offensive" these days too.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

2008 in Canada

We read:

"What a year it's been for freedom of expression. First we had the Canadian Human Rights Commission decline to hear the complaint against Maclean's magazine in respect to the Mark Steyn book excerpt titled Why The Future belongs To Islam. Next we had the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal dismiss the same complaint after holding a very strange three-week hearing.

Even the Ontario Human Rights Commission declined jurisdiction over the Maclean's complaint. Of course, they had no jurisdiction under the Ontario legislation but that didn't stop Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall from condemning the article without the benefit of a hearing. That's no mistake by the way. The same complaint was filed and considered in three jurisdictions in Canada. With our patchwork of human rights codes the same complaint can be filed in multiple jurisdictions. If it was a court case, multiple proceedings would be seen as an abuse of process, but not in our world of human rights.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission retained law professor Richard Moon to review section 13, the oft-criticized hate speech section of the Canadian Human Rights Code. In what must have been a huge surprise, Moon recommended the hate speech section be repealed and that we should leave hate speech prosecutions to the purview of the criminal law. He recommended we prosecute hate speech that "advocates, justifies or threatens violence."

We know his recommendations will be ignored by the CHRC but perhaps it will spur the federal government to do something about section 13. As Moon stated, "Religious beliefs or values (and I would add, political beliefs and values) cannot be insulated from debate and criticism, even that which is harsh and uncivil."

"Federal regulators this week warned Coca-Cola that its Diet Coke Plus product is misbranded because the beverage's label has a nutrient claim but doesn't meet criteria to make that claim. The label also describes the soda as "Diet Coke with vitamins and minerals," according to a warning letter the Food and Drug Administration sent Dec. 10 to the Atlanta beverage company, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

The FDA said the term "plus" is supposed to be used only to describe nutrient labeling, and the agency said it doesn't consider it appropriate to fortify carbonated beverages with nutrients, reports Dow Jones

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Palin a racist?

We read:

"Evidence that Democrats consider Sarah Palin a potent political force for the future continues to mount. A Huffington Post blogger went rooting around the comments at the Team Sarah website over the weekend and emerged to announce that he had discovered "something very ugly happening out there in the hinterlands these days -- a brewing cauldron of racist anger being directed at President-elect Barack Obama."

This accusation of "mean-spirited bigotry" was based on a relative handful of comments, far less dramatic than the huffy HuffPoster's hyperbolic introduction suggested. The Christian ladies who run Team Sarah -- Marjorie Dannenfelser, Jane Abraham and Emily Buchanan of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List -- responded immediately with sanctions against commenters who cross the lines of political decorum. (Of course, decorum is not even an afterthought at Huffington Post, DailyKos or any number of liberal blogs where the comment fields routinely boil with vitriol, but conservatives have long since become accustomed to this sort of double standard.)

"An advertising billboard that screams 'Want Longer Lasting Sex?' has prompted a barrage of complaints. Almost 200 hoardings in bold red on yellow print have appeared in and around London. One, with the word 'sex' in lettering twice as high as the rest of the advert, is within a few hundred metres of a large supermarket. The adverts will soon be rolled out across the UK.

Last night the Advertising Standards Authority said it had launched a formal investigation into the campaign, which has provoked 249 complaints in eight days. A large number of parents are said to be among those who have taken offence to the 196 billboards from the company - which treats erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation.

Despite the watchdog investigation, AMI, which has only recently opened a clinic in London, has not been ordered to take the billboards down. The result of the probe will not be known until the New Year. On its website, the company boasts of having treated 'well over 300,000 men'.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Hate speech from the Left against Pastor Warren

We read:

"Rick Warren, the evangelical preacher chosen by Barack Obama to deliver the inaugural invocation, has posted a three-part video to his church's website responding to the furor that has erupted over his selection. In the video, Warren criticizes the media, and, in particular, bloggers, for fueling the controversy. And he says the criticism of him in the wake of his selection has been characterized by "a lot of hate speech" and by "Christophobia -- people who are afraid of any Christian.''

"Our nation is being destroyed by the demonization of differences,'' he says. "The fact that an evangelical pastor believes in keeping the historic definition of marriage -- that's not news. The fact that the gay community would disagree with me -- that's not news either. The real story is that a couple of different American leaders have chosen to model civility for the rest of the nation.''

"Free speech has to be free speech for everybody,'' he says. "Some people feel today if you disagree with them that's hate speech...I'm neither afraid of gays, nor do I hate gays. In fact, I love them, but I do disagree with some of their beliefs, and I have that constitutional right.''

There is a video of Pastor Warren replying to his attackers at the link above. He is in many ways a centrist politically (which is why Obama chose him) but he is a traditional Christian. But a traditional Christian is not allowed to say a prayer at the Obama inauguration, apparently. That sounds pretty intolerant to me.

I am sure Obama has his eye on the great majority of Americans who feel repelled by homosexuality rather than on the small but shrill homosexual population.

Chinese people are in fact very law-abiding in general but there are exceptions to every rule

"Batman blockbuster The Dark Knight won't be screened in Chinese cinemas, Warner Bros says. The studio said in a statement overnight that the acclaimed film - the second highest-grossing movie in US box-office history - would be canned in China, with "cultural sensitivities" cited as one of the reasons for the no-show.

"Based on a number of pre-release conditions that are being attached to The Dark Knight as well as cultural sensitivities to some elements of the film, we have opted to forego a theatrical release of the film in China," the statement said.

It was not clear what "cultural sensitivities" were at issue but the movie includes an action sequence shot in Hong Kong where Batman, played by Christian Bale, apprehends a Chinese money-launderer.

In 2006, Chinese authorities barred the release of Hollywood movie Memoirs of a Geisha amid speculation its portrayal of Japanese courtesans played by Chinese actresses could spark public controversy.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Mormon hatred

Another gusher of Leftist hate below. He attacks Mormons, a tiny minority in California, for their support of a constitutional amendment that blocks homosexual marriage. Most analysts say that blacks and Hispanics were the real muscle behind the "No" vote so I guess that some of us have wondered why the Mormons were singled out by lots of Leftists on this occasion.

As you read below however, you see that he has always despised Mormons ("money-soaked", "smug self-containment" etc.). Leftists are just full of hatred for anybody who is happily getting on with their lives and any excuse will do to let some of the hatred out:

"It has to do with the passage of Proposition 8, that California trash that befouled an otherwise heavenly election. Specifically, it has to do with the Mormon Church, which swung its considerable clout to the travesty of denying gays the respectability and dignity that Mormons have spent well over a century trying to get for themselves. And which now, they themselves should be denied.

That's right, you heard me. The Mormon Church has become a hateful bully and should be treated as such. Other people voted for Proposition 8, true, and much has been made of how black voters probably ensured its passage. But black voters aren't a money-soaked, monolithic, corporatized, sanctimonious monstrosity that poured $20 million into the effort, are they?

It's frustrating that there's not much we can do. We could refuse to spend our money in Mormon-owned businesses. We could refuse to vote for Mormon politicians. We could challenge their religious tax exemptions and I would love it if someone asked some serious questions as to why there's always a damn Mormon seminary within a stone's throw of nearly every high school from here to Salt Lake City.

But frankly, those of us who grew up around the smug self-containment of our Mormon neighbors will realize none of that would work and, in fact, would probably only make them more smugly self-contained. The Mormon Church has always luxuriated in their history of being picked on.

Yet after this orchestrated disdain for the happiness and emotional well-being of their fellow citizens, my fear of saying what I really think of them (that variety of cowardice I spoke of earlier) is a thing of the past. I am now free to be as unaccepting of them as they are of gays. There is an old tradition among rigid religions-I believe the Mormons still practice it on occasion-called "shunning." Now that they have placed themselves on the wrong side of both morality and freedom, I shun them. Better yet, I excommunicate them. They don't exist to me. Their marriages don't matter. Their happiness and emotional well-being don't matter. Let us move on, around them, as though they weren't there. Let us excise them from our thoughts and our hearts.

But listen, we would never want to be quite as intolerant as them, would we? And in that spirit, should they ever renounce the evil in their hierarchy and escape the sin of their dogma, we must let them know they are always welcome back, here in the fold of America.

"Sin of their dogma"? I thought that there was no such thing as right and wrong to a Leftist? I wonder where he gets his notion of sin from? Romans chapter 1 tells us that homosexuality is a sin. I guess he just pulls his notion of sin out of his butt.

"Consumers worldwide might be tightening their belts, but Maggie Anderson's mind is black with plots to spend. Her Oak Park family is publicly committing to a year of buying from black-owned business and supporting black professionals exclusively, starting Jan. 1. These days, she's searching frantically for black-owned firms for staple items and services, until she and her husband, John, can broaden their awareness of businesses and professionals. That means she's got to find a new dry cleaner. She's looking for a place to gas up the family's two cars. And locating black McDonald's franchises is a must. "My girls love the fries," she said of her two daughters. Her family's efforts will be followed by a team of college researchers as part of a project called the Ebony Experiment to determine the impact of the Andersons' spending if extrapolated to a larger portion of black America.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Another case of abusive homosexuals

California is not alone:

"An aide to the Archbishop of Canterbury has been sacked after writing an insult to a senior bishop into an official document. The Lambeth Palace staff member made an offensive reference to the Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, who has been at odds with the Archbishop over the issue of homosexuality. The document in the affair, a list of candidates for job vacancies, included a reference to 'the a***hole Bishop of Rochester'. It was copied to all 43 of the Church of England's diocesan bishops and to Downing Street. The rogue word was noticed only after the paper had been circulated.

A Church of England spokesman yesterday confirmed the Lambeth Palace aide responsible had been sacked. He said: 'When this came to light there was an immediate investigation. The person responsible admitted to it and was summarily dismissed.' The culprit is widely assumed to have been someone who sympathises with the Church of England's gay lobby. The Church has declined to name him or her.

"As the list of Madoff's "victims" grows, their common characteristic is not philanthropy, but rather political Zionism. Virtually all have worked to build a Jewish state with little regard, and often downright hatred, for the non-Jewish population living there.

The money from this type of mogul or "ganzer macher" has been used to dehumanize and depopulate non-Jews in Palestine for over 120 years. But in spite of creating a strong Israeli economy based on guns, diamonds, and security services and in spite of walling Arabs in Bantustans in the West Bank and in the KZ lager known as Gaza, they have failed. Non-Jews outnumber Jews within the borders controlled by Israel, which makes a mockery out of calling it a Jewish state.

Schadenfreude is defined to be largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another which is recognized as well deserved. Political Zionism deserves scorn and derision; it is racist and antithetical to what Americans profess to hold self-evident: that all men and women are created equal and that we should share equal rights of citizenship. When rich Zionists lose a piece of their portfolios, especially to the guile of one of their own, it is a delight.

The press was first to report Madoff's pilfering of the Robert Lappin "Charitable" Foundation, an organization whose "mission is helping to keep our children Jewish, thus reversing the trend of assimilation and intermarriage." If the reader has trouble seeing the blatant racism here, substitute "White" for "Jewish" and imagine it was the stated goal of the David Duke Charitable Foundation.

While Mr. Burston found Madoff's bilking of "fellow Jews, even Holocaust survivors" particularly outrageous, there are those who find divine justice in seeing one fraud defraud another. Elie Wiesel and his Foundation for Humanity would certainly qualify. Here is a man who has made millions peddling his narrative on the deaths of Jews in World War II; his novel, Night, is mandatory reading for most high school students; questioning it in any way invites charges of "anti-Semitism" and "Holocaust Denial." He has been feted by Presidents and holds dozens of honorary degrees. If there were a CEO of the Holocaust Industry (a term coined by Norman Finkelstein), surely it would be The Great Weasel.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

No ethnic preferences allowed in marriage choices any more?

Jews and Indians and Muslims must be a bad lot, then. Have you any idea of what many a Yiddisher Momma thinks about "shicksas"? Endogamy (marrying within your own ethnic or social group) has always been widespread among the human race. Marrying "out" is still a rare phenomenon in most of the world. Even in Britain today, it would be a rare upper class female who would marry a Cockney (working-class Londoner). But apparently endogamy is now all wrong, according to our wise Leftists:

"As much as I'd love to pan Momma's Boys (8 p.m. on NBC, E!) -- a crass reality dating show about, holy Oedipus, three bachelors sifting through a sea of bodacious women with help from their opinionated, controlling mothers -- I have to admit that by the end of the horrifyingly in-your-face premiere, I couldn't look away.

That's because what started as a standard-issue exercise in reality claptrap -- the kind where you admire the scenery, laugh at the stupidity and nod off before the final credits -- took a bizarre turn with the arrival of momma No. 3, a defiantly racist Neanderthal who makes the most objectionable statements I've heard on a prime-time show since the heyday of All In The Family.

"I can't have a black one!" mutters Khalood Bojanowski of her dating wish list for her beloved son, Jo Jo. "I can't have an Asian one, I can't have a fat-butt girl. I can't have a mixture at all -- no mixture for my son. And no Jewish girl -- no way! I'm sorry, but I can't stand them!''

Apparently it's now only homosexual marriages that may not be criticized, according to the Left.

The rather priceless "Invitation" below is of course a joke but it gives you an (exaggerated) idea of the traditional Yiddisher Momma attitude to "my son the doctor" marrying a "shicksa" (non-Jewish female). "Schicksa" is, incidentally, a German word meaning "prostitute". Yiddish is a German dialect.

As far as I am concerned, Yiddisher Mommas have every right to want their sons to marry "a nice Jewish girl". There is nonetheless a high rate of intermarriage among Jews and "Goyim" (gentiles) -- so even Yiddisher Mommas don't always get their way.

"Florida Politics has, thankfully, collected a series of absolutely shocking statements that shows Palins peeps for who they are - racists. Here is just a few of the examples that they are keeping:

Al Austin, a high-level Republican fundraiser from Tampa, sent an e-mail to his list of his political contacts Wednesday containing a joke that refers to the assassination of Barack Obama. Is that funny? Well here's the alleged "joke":

The joke concerns a group of school children discussing the definition of "tragedy," as opposed to "great loss" or "accident." The punchline says that if an airplane carrying Obama and his wife was blown up, "it certainly wouldn't be a great loss, and it probably wouldn't be an accident either."

Apparently conservatives are not allowed to think that the death of a political opponent would be no loss. Note that there's no mention of race in the allegedly "racist" joke. Apparently, any adverse mention of the Holy Child is racist.

Monday, December 22, 2008

MSU cannot abide criticism from a student

We read:

"A Michigan State University student government leader has been found guilty of "spamming" and misuse of university resources after she criticized the administration's plan to change the school calendar. MSU junior Kara Spencer had carefully selected and e-mailed 391 of the school's faculty members, encouraging them to express their views about the changes. Spencer, who plans to appeal her unconstitutional punishment, has turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help.

"It is outrageous that MSU's Student-Faculty Judiciary would find against a student who did nothing more than write members of her community who might be concerned about a major administrative decision," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "MSU must immediately reverse this unjust punishment and revise its policy."

"A public school teacher in Mississippi marked down an eleven-year-old's Christmas poem assignment and told the boy to rewrite it because he used the word "Jesus," which, the instructor explained, is a name not allowed in school.

Liberty Counsel, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, reports that sixth-grader Andrew White of Hattiesburg, Miss., chose to write the poem on the assignment "What Christmas means to me." After White turned in his rough draft, however, his teacher circled the word "Jesus" and deducted a point from his grade. The teacher then explained that he needed to rewrite the poem without the offending word.

When White's parents questioned the teacher, Liberty Counsel reports, they received a response email explaining, "[Andrew] and another child did a poem about Christ. I know we can't discuss these type [sic] of things in school so I asked the two of them to do another poem of their choice."

Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of Liberty University School of Law, expressed dismay that despite many legal clarifications on the issue, there are still educationl officials that mistakenly believe students can't speak of their faith at school. "Some educators need education that the story of Christmas is not banned from public schools," Staver said in a statement.

The principal at White's Thames Elementary School agreed with Staver. After White's parents encouraged Andrew to turn in his first, unedited poem, Principal Carrie Hornsby changed the boy's grade to a 100 and conceded that there was nothing improper in using Jesus' name. Hornsby also coordinated a mailing to all the school's parents, explaining that students' religious expression is permitted under federal guidelines.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Must not joke about Obama

We read:

"Alaska officials are investigating racist jokes about President-elect Barack Obama that have been circulating on state government e-mail accounts.

One of the five e-mails obtained by The Associated Press asks about the outcome of the Democrat's victory after all the time and money invested and concludes: "Another black family living in government housing!"

A certain National Socialist was pretty big on regarding some people as sub-human too. A lot of them would have had relatives in NY in fact. Looks like questioning people's humanity is a socialist thing. Christopher Campbell, a Leftist movie critic writes:

"Don't you just hate when the movies make you care about a bigot? Sure, racists are technically humans, but that doesn't mean we need to sympathize with them, right? No matter how great the film, it should be very difficult to accept the softening of intolerant people.

Isn't Leftist tolerance wonderful? They set us all such a good example. "All men are equal", unless you disagree with the current Leftist ideas, of course. You sure find out how unequal you are then. And it doesn't take much to qualify as a "racist". Critics of illegal immigration are routinely called that by Leftists.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

'Osama Obama Shotgun' betting condemned

This happened a little while back but I think it is still interesting:

"Passions have flared in a US town over a sign in a store asking customers to place bets on an assassination of President-elect Barack Obama. The Town Council in Standish, Maine, condemned the sign in a 6-0 vote and declared it reprehensible at a meeting where some residents defended the store owner, saying he had a right to free speech even if in bad taste, local authorities said.

"The town of Standish condemns in the strongest terms any such alleged activity calling for violence against any individual no matter their position, race or ethnicity," said the resolution posted on the town's website.

The sign in the Oak Hill General Store asked customers to place a $1 bet on the date of Mr Obama's assassination, and said "Let's hope someone wins," the Portland Press Herald reported. It was called the "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool".

The store in the town of 9,285 people in south-west Maine has remained closed since reports of the sign appeared in the media on Sunday (local time). About 80 people attended the meeting, including some who defended the store owner, said town clerk Mary Chapman. "There were folks on both sides of the issue," Ms Chapman said in a telephone interview.

"FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for December 2007: the University of Cincinnati. The University of Cincinnati maintains a "Free Speech Area" policy (see page 10 of manual) limiting free speech to one area of campus and requiring that activities even in that area be formally scheduled through the Campus Scheduling Office. These free speech zone policies are typically very unpopular with students, and FIRE has successfully challenged a number of them, including at West Virginia University, the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Texas Tech University, Citrus College, the University of Nevada-Reno, and Colorado State University.

So if these policies are so common, what makes the University of Cincinnati's stand out enough to merit the Speech Code of the Month shame? It is the fact that the university backs up its free speech zone policy with the threat of criminal punishment:

"The northwest section (see diagram) of McMicken Commons immediately east of McMicken Hall on the West Campus is designated as the main free speech area. Individuals or groups wanting to use these areas must schedule the activity in the Campus Scheduling Office. Anyone violating this policy may be charged with trespassing.

Really? The university plans to criminally prosecute students who choose to exercise their free speech rights on other open areas of the university's campus, or who fail to register their activities in advance with the Campus Scheduling Office? If this is true, it is not only a massive violation of students' First Amendment rights, but also a colossal waste of the judicial system's time. If it is not true, but is merely a threat made to give the free speech zone policy some "teeth," then it has a powerful and impermissible chilling effect on student speech on campus. A quick look at a map of the university's West Campus shows that the "northwest section of McMicken Commons" is a very small area of campus, and that there are numerous other greens, commons, lawn areas, and sidewalks where students should be able to exercise their free speech rights. It is truly shameful this public university-legally bound to uphold its students' First Amendment rights-not only maintains this repressive Free Speech Area policy but threatens students with criminal prosecution merely for exercising their constitutionally protected rights outside of the paltry area it has designated for free speech.

Friday, December 19, 2008

The O word: The word 'obese' is banned in Britain

We read:

"Ministers banned the word 'obese' on letters to the parents of fat children - because focus groups did not like it, England's chief medical officer said today. Professor Liam Donaldson revealed that the term was replaced on letters to parents by 'very overweight' over fears it would upset and stigmatise fat children. Writing on the BBC News website he said obesity had become a taboo word or an 'O word'.

The Department of Health announced in August that for the first time parents would be routinely informed if their child was clinically overweight. Children are weighed on entering primary school (at age four or five) and in their final year (aged 10 or 11) as part of the National Child Measurement Programme.

Letters are then sent out to make parents aware of potential problems with their child's weight so they go and see their doctor about it if needed. But Professor Donaldson said that in the planning stage, a 'stumbling block' was the wording of the feedback letter. 'The majority of these parents felt that using the term "very overweight" in combination with the associated health risks was a better approach. Suddenly, we had stepped on eggshells.' He added: 'Obesity has become the new cancer. A word that is taboo, that intimidates, strikes fear, that promoted softer euphemisms. In effect it has become an "O" word.

At the time, the National Obesity Forum described the Government's decision not to use the word obese as 'prissy and namby pamby'.

The word is deliberately used by fat-warriors in a derogatory way. Strictly, it refers only to grossly overweight people but has come to be used to refer to any degree of being overweight. So we now have the amusing situation where people will hear all these furious condemnations of obesity in the media but then will all be told that it does not apply to their kid -- a very confused and confusing message. One arm of officialdom is being defeated by another arm of officialdom!

Polynesians are Pacific Islanders who look like large Japanese -- native Hawaiians, New Zealand Maoris, Tongans, Samoans etc. They did use spears until the missionaries got to them in the 19th century. In Australia, they are usually poor and ill-educated and often have lots of children. On average, they have a high rate of crime.

"A Lesbian Asian bus driver was fired by Brisbane City Council after she wrote a note referring to commuters as "spear chuckers with prams". But Lillian Tam - who said she has fought discrimination all her life - said the note was not meant to be malicious or racist, the Courier Mail reports. She claimed the phrase was used by bus drivers to describe the 110 bus route in Brisbane after a group of Sudanese, Tongan, Samoan and Caucasian passengers wearing face masks and carrying spears were picked up one day. Ms Tam said other routes were dubbed the Orient Express, the Bombay Express and the Granny Run.

The full bench of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission this week rejected Ms Tam's appeal against an earlier decision of Senior Deputy President Peter Richards, who found her dismissal was fair.

Ms Tam, 47, of Parkinson, had been a casual trainee bus driver at the Richlands Bus Depot for two and a half years, when she left the note requesting a particular bus for a friend and colleague at the refuelling station on April 6, 2007. It stated: "Could you please not give a 2506 merc (sic) tomorrow coz (sic) I'm taking over and I'm doing all the 110s - I do not want to pick up all those spear chuckers with prams!!!" The commission was told that if Ms Tam drove a high-floor bus, as she requested, many passengers would not get on because of the lack of space to manoeuvre their prams.

But the note was found by indigenous co-worker Katherine Jennings, who told the commission she felt angry, humiliated and frustrated by the "extremely derogatory" and "disrespectful" language. "It conveyed to me that dark-skinned people are primitive," Ms Jennings said"

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Is racism the ultimate evil?

From the way Leftists talk, one would certainly get the impression that racism is the ultimate evil. In the 2008 Presidential campaign, an amazing number of utterances by Obama foes were twisted out of all recognition in an attempt to portray them as racist.

I would argue that things like dishonesty, lack of reality contact and emotionalism are far more detrimental to overall human welfare but, judging by their own most usual method of argument, Leftists are quite comfortable with such phenomena.

Leftists normally justify their paranoia about racism by referring to Hitler. They say that Hitler's treatment of the Jews shows just how evil racism is. But Jews are not a race! It is only your religious heritage that makes you a Jew. Judging by the number of blue-eyed Jews around, Jews are in fact quite mixed racially.

So Hitler's deeds cannot be put down to racism. They could however be seen as an example of religious bigotry and are thus yet another example of how destructive religious bigotry can be. And who are the main religious bigots today? Muslims and Leftists. The furious hatred that Leftists pour out on Christianity is quite virulent religious bigotry. So, as in other ways, it is Leftists, not racists who are Hitler's real heirs.

Even the well-known claim by Hitler that Germans are a Herrenvolk can only be portrayed as racist by mistranslation. It is commonly translated as "master race" but that is not what it means at all. The German word for race is Rasse and if Hitler had meant "Master race", he would have said Herrenrasse. But he didn't. Volk means "people" and is related to the English word "folk". So Hitler was quite clearly referring to a "Master people", not a master race.

And note that in the old Communist East Germany, they used Volk a lot. East German products used all to bear the brand "VEB", which stands for Volkseigenebetrieb, or "people's own enterprise". So were the Communist East Germans racist? Were they portraying their products as coming from the East German race? I think the answer is obvious to anybody but a Leftist intellectual.

Ultimately, the Jews were simply convenient to Hitler -- a group on whom all problems could traditionally be blamed: A scapegoat. His treatment of them was politically useful, not an outcome of racism. He treated many groups harshly, including clearly religious groups. One instance of that was Jehovah's Witnesses, then known in Germany as Ernste Bibelforscher. Because they refused to be conscripted into Germany's armed forces, they too went to the concentration camps.

Trying to be accurate has its perils. I gather that some have seen what I said above as a defence of Hitler. Nothing I said above does that. I said that Hitler used the Jews as a scapegoat, which is far and away the most common summary of his actions. By noting that his savagery extended to all sorts of groups, I think I have in fact shown that he was worse than a racist. The entire nation of Britain was racist in the 19th century. They thought that to be born British was to be born superior. Yet they did nothing remotely resembling what Hitler did. They in fact made a Jew their Prime Minister.

"Baz Luhrmann's epic Australia and its star Nicole Kidman have angered Aboriginal groups after the actress tried to play a didgeridoo on a German television show at the weekend. The light-hearted stunt flouted Aboriginal custom in many parts of Australia, where women are forbidden to play the instrument.

Kidman blew feebly into a didgeridoo during a promotional appearance on Wetten, Dass .?, a high-rating German program known for its high jinks.

Richard Green, an award-winning actor, screenwriter and Dharug language teacher, said he was disgusted. "People are going to see Nicole playing it and think it's all right. It bastardises our culture. I will guarantee she has no more children. It's not meant to be played by women as it will make them barren." The didgeridoo, or yirdaki, is said by some to make women infertile, and Mr Green said he feared other women would imitate Kidman without realising its dangers.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

"A gay activist from Sydney says his human rights have been violated by the human rights watchdog itself - because it refused to ban a "homophobic" Telstra ad about two men in a tent.

Glebe-based advocate Andrew James has now lodged an official complaint, prompting a call from Human Rights Commissioner Graeme Innes for people to lighten up, The Daily Telegraph reports.

In the ad, two men on a camping trip become suspicious when their two mates disappear into a tent. It later emerges they are simply watching cricket on the same mobile phone.

"Gay men who do choose to have sex in a tent should not have to be afraid of getting caught by their friends," Mr James' writes on his website, engayment.org.

He complained to the Australian Human Rights Commission about the ad but found there was no official category because it did not occur in the workplace.... AHRC complaint handling director Karen Toohey said there was no legal basis to act against the ad.

"Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance. Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm.

A few years ago, Google's apparently unimpeachable objectivity got some people very excited, and technology utopians began to herald Google as the conduit for a new form of democracy. Google was only too pleased to encourage this view. It explained that its algorithm "relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. "

It wasn't surprising, then, that when five years ago I described how a small, self-selected number of people could rig Google's search results, the reaction from the people doing the rigging was violently antagonistic. Who lifted that rock? they cried.

But what was once Googlewashing by a select few now has Google's active participation. This week Marissa Meyer explained that editorial judgments will play a key role in Google searches. It was reported by Tech Crunch proprietor Michael Arrington - who Nick Carr called the "Madam of the Web 2.0 Brothel" - but its significance wasn't noted. The irony flew safely over his head at 30,000 feet. Arrington observed:

"Mayer also talked about Google's use of user data created by actions on Wiki search to improve search results on Google in general. For now that data is not being used to change overall search results, she said. But in the future it's likely Google will use the data to at least make obvious changes. An example is if "thousands of people" were to knock a search result off a search page, they'd be likely to make a change.

Now what, you may be thinking, is an "obvious change"? Is it one that is frivolous? Or is it one that goes against the grain of the consensus? If so, then who decides what the consensus must be? Make no mistake, Google is moving into new territory: not only making arbitrary, editorial choices - really no different to Fox News, say, or any other media organization. It's now in the business of validating and manufacturing consent: not only reporting what people say, but how you should think.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Must not mention that a crook is a big Democrat donor

We read:

"Very few media stories of the fraud perpetrated by former Nasdaq chairman Madoff mentions the heavy financial support that Madoff has donated to the Democrat Party. Campaign contributions by Madoff show many thousands of dollars going to Democrat candidates and causes. Including $100,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign, thousands to Charles Rangel (D, NY), Charles Schumer (D, NY), and $6,000 to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. Madoff also gave generously to Senator Frank Lautenberg (D, NJ) who runs a charitable foundation that invested with Madoff.

The Madoff fraud is said to be the biggest scam ever, with billions lost. Banks worldwide were caught. He stole from charities, 401(k)s, pension plans, retired people and some really vulnerable souls. Some charities lost their entire investments. More on the losers here.

"Enduring favourites such as Hark the Herald Angels Sing and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen are being altered by British clergy to make them more "modern and inclusive". But churchgoers say there is no need to change the popular carols and complain that the result is a "festive car crash" if not everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet....

Among the "theologically modified, politically corrected" carols encountered by visitors to the website are Hark the Herald Angels Sing in which the line "Glory to the newborn King" has been replaced by "Glory to the Christ child, bring".

The well-known refrain of O Come All Ye Faithful - "O come let us adore Him" - has also been changed in one church to "O come in adoration", both changes apparently made for fear that the original was sexist. "(One reader) wrote in asking if the original line was considered too gender-specific," Mr Goddard said. "But as he rightly pointed out, Jesus wasn't hermaphrodite, neither was he a girl."

Churchgoers at one carol service will not be allowed to sing the words "all in white" during Once in Royal David's City in case they appear racist, while another cleric has removed the word "virgin" from God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Must not speak loudly to blacks

We read:

"Some members of the New Orleans black community sounded off Thursday night after a series of heated exchanges between City Council Member Stacy Head and several high-profile black leaders. Some people accused Head of being disrespectful and insensitive. A leader of the black religious community said he was yelled at publicly by Head at an event for Congressman-elect Joseph Cao....

This came after a string of instances where some in the community said they believe Head has been confrontational in her interaction with African-Americans.

She spoke with NewsChannel 6 at a talk radio station, where she addressed concerns Thursday afternoon. "Nothing hurts a progressive Caucasian as much as being called a racist, and people who use that card know it," Head said. Head defended herself after a series of heated exchanges, including the showdown between Head and City Sanitation Director Veronica White over the city's garbage contracts....

"I'm just a fiery personality," Head said. It's a personality that doesn't have a problem challenging authority. She said it just so happens that most of the city's leadership is black.

A man who had helped with Obama's campaign used a naughty word after he had been drinking:

"The head of the state firefighters union has resigned over a racist comment he made the day after Barack Obama became the first African-American to be elected president.

The Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin announced the resignation of Rick Gale and said his comment was "offensive, inappropriate and racially insensitive and does not reflect the views or our union."

Gale, who is a lieutenant with the West Allis Fire Department, headed the union for eight years. He admitted in his letter of resignation that he used the "single racially charged word" while watching the TV news as he had drinks with several board members after a meeting. He apologized to the union and the public and said he is resigning from all the boards he served on, including the State of Wisconsin Retirement Board. He was appointed to that board by Governor Jim Doyle, who was an ardent supporter of Obama throughout the presidential race.

You've got to be on the alert all the time, even when drinking. Even Fascist Italy was more tolerant than that. You could be locked up for criticizing Mussolini but if you criticized him in a bar, you were OK.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Old Glory: You're free to burn it but not free to display it at work

Something sure smells rotten there. Do only Leftists have rights? And guess which side the ACLU is on?

"Ralph Silvestro, a legal clerk who works at the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia, never imagined that anyone would have a beef over the American flag he had taped to the side of his work computer. After all, he works in a courthouse.

No one complained about the flags, Silvestro said. Then on Sept. 23, Silvestro got an e-mail from his supervisor: "Keith has advised me as your supervisor, that the flags must come down. They are not appropriate for the workplace," the e-mail said. The "Keith" mentioned in the e-mail was Keith Smith, the new director of Active Criminal Records....

When asked if Smith had violated Silvestro's constitutional rights, perhaps infringing on his freedom of expression, a civil-rights lawyer said: "No." "Here's the thing: Your boss rules your life," said Mary Catherine Roper, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania's Philadelphia office. "Your employer gets to make the rules."

If burning the flag is protected freedom of expression, displaying it should be too. And the first amendment DOES apply because the guy was working in a government office. The story might have been different in a private business. If the ACLU were really in favor of free speech they would have defended this guy and had good prospects of success in court.

"A group that advocates separation of church and state filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to prevent South Carolina from becoming the first state to create "I Believe" license plates.

The group contends that South Carolina's government is endorsing Christianity by allowing the plates, which would include a cross superimposed on a stained glass window.

Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Christian pastors, a humanist pastor and a rabbi in South Carolina, along with the Hindu American Foundation.

As I understand it, these plates are simply something you can choose as an option. They are not compulsory for all. So the State is simply providing a product that you can buy. How does that represent the establishment of a religion? An established church has the wages of its clergy paid by the State. I see no sign of that here. (H/T Kenn Gividen)

Saturday, December 13, 2008

"Scary" report must be suppressed

Some bipartisan nonsense from Australia:

"A secret report on Australia's ability to recover from a catastrophe is being suppressed by the Government. The report, prepared in 2005, has been deemed too sensitive for release. It is believed to look at alarming scenarios such as terrorist strikes, disease pandemics and the total breakdown of food production.

The "Review of Australia's Ability to Respond to and recover from Catastrophic Disasters" was initially suppressed by the Howard government but the Rudd government also wants it kept under wraps.

Opposition Senator Gary Humphries said the public was being kept in the dark because the Government didn't want to frighten people. "I think that the plans are somewhat under-developed," he said. "And if you talk to people about bomb attacks or buildings falling down, they'll start to get nervous and panic. But I think it's profoundly dangerous to keep people happy by not giving them the knowledge that they might use."

Romanian politicians fail in a novel attempt to limit the media's reporting of bad news

We read:

"The Romanian Constitutional Court has just quashed an attempt by the legislature to make the news media broadcast equal measures of good and bad news. Politicians in Romania said that too much bad news is being reported and it is bringing people down. Bemoaning the negative effects of bad news on "the health and life of the people", they successfully put a law through the Romanian senate that required radio and television companies to broadcast one good news story for every bad news story.

The law was sponsored by senators from the National Liberal Party and the far-right Great Romania Party and passed by the Romanian senate. What was needed, the politicians enthusiastically agreed, was less news about depressing things such as incompetent politicians and more news about cheery things. They legislated that the National Audiovisual Council would need to judge what was positive news and what was negative news. The chairman of the council, though, was understandably perplexed. He pointed out that such a half-good and half-bad recipe for all news broadcasts would be impossible. He said: "News is news. It is neither positive nor negative. It simply reflects reality."

The opposition liberal democrats argued that the "good news" law was unacceptable as it restricted freedom of expression. The court agreed, and declared the legislation unconstitutional.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Ford dealer airs "racist" radio advert

We read:

"A Ford dealer in Hardeeville, SC has begun airing an ad that contains what many consider a racist remark against the Japanese. O.C. Welch, the dealership's owner, claims in the ad entitled "Wake Up America" that Japanese vehicles like those made by Toyota are "rice ready... not road ready." OK, we don't even know what that means, but it's clear that many Japanese-Americans are not pleased with the dealer's remarks. Welch, however, apparently couldn't care less and claims the ad, which is one of five new promotions launched by his dealership yesterday, have a 96% approval rating. Referring to Japanese cars as "rice" actually began in the tuner culture, and usually refers to highly modified Japanese sport compacts that have more show than go.

Welch also asks in his advertisement why vehicles made by Toyota don't have that new car smell. We didn't know this was the case, but someone should tell Welch that the smell he loves so much actually comes from plastic dashboard pieces giving off toxic gas. Perhaps he should stop sniffing glove boxes before he makes marketing decisions. You can check out a video after the jump from a local TV news station that features clips from the ad in question as well as an interview of Welch, who comes off as just the greatest guy ever

"A pub landlord [bar owner] has hit out after being arrested on suspicion of committing a racially-aggravated public order offence. Police swooped on Peter Mailer's premises, the Black Bull Hotel in Warkworth, last Tuesday, following a formal complaint over newspaper clippings, political cartoons and other items displayed on his bar-room walls.

Mr Mailer, who admits he is an active supporter of the British National Party, was hauled into Alnwick Police Station, along with the cuttings, where he provided a taped interview under caution. He has now been bailed to return to the station on December 23, when he will learn whether or not the Crown Prosecution Service will charge him.

But the 52-year-old publican said he was stunned to learn that the complaint had been made by an off-duty senior police officer from Nottinghamshire, who was on holiday in the region when he paid a visit to the Black Bull the previous Friday night. "There was absolutely nothing said about the so-called racist items on my wall. About 90 per cent of them were clippings taken directly from national newspapers. "On Tuesday two Northumbria officers turned up and arrested me, took everything off the walls and I had to go to the station to give a taped interview."

He added: "It seems that this senior officer had to justify his fat salary by rocking the boat in a sleepy little village hundreds of miles away from where he lives. "I've had this pub three years, it's full of regulars of all political persuasions who don't have an issue with what I put on my walls."....

A spokeswoman for Northumbria Police said: "A 52-year-old man from the Alnwick area was arrested on Tuesday, November 25, on suspicion of committing a racially-aggravated public order offence, and has been bailed."

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Wikipedia victory in censorship row

We read:

"An anti-child abuse watchdog has reversed its decision to blacklist a Wikipedia page showing a controversial 1976 album cover after protests over censorship. Most British internet service providers had blocked users from accessing the image of a prepubescent naked girl on the cover of the Virgin Killer album by the Scorpions, a German band, after the Internet Watch Foundation ruled it was a "potentially illegal indecent image".

But the picture was accessible on many other sites and some argued that, while provocative, it was an artistic historical artefact and should not be banned. Last night the IWF accepted that its ban had been counter-productive after the controversy had prompted millions to view the image. It said in a statement: "The IWF Board has considered these findings and the contextual issues involved in this specific case and, in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability, the decision has been taken to remove this webpage from our list.

"IWF's overriding objective is to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect. We regret the unintended consequences for Wikipedia and its users. Wikipedia have been informed of the outcome of this procedure and IWF Board's subsequent decision." .......

Wikipedia had sharply criticised the IWF decision which had the side-effect of leaving many British internet users unable to edit Wikipedia entries and affected the website's performance......

The Wikimedia Foundation behind Wikipedia had protested that the IWF had gone too far. "The IWF didn't just block the image; it blocked access to the article itself, which discusses the image in a neutral, encyclopedic fashion," said Wikimedia Foundation head Sue Gardner from San Francisco.

Jeremy Clarkson cleared by Ofcom over joke about truck drivers and prostitutes

Some sense of proportion left in Britain:

"Jeremy Clarkson [pic above] has been cleared by the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom of causing offence after making a joke about lorry drivers murdering prostitutes. Ofcom received 339 complaints after the Top Gear presenter made the remarks during a pre-recorded episode of the BBC Two motoring show last month.

Clarkson and his co-presenters James May, the Daily Telegraph columnist, and Richard Hammond, were taking part in a stunt for the show that involved driving lorries around an obstacle course. Climbing behind the wheel, Clarkson mused: "What matters to lorry drivers? Murdering prostitutes? Fuel economy?" He went on: "This is a hard job, and I'm not just saying this to win favour with lorry drivers. It's a hard job - change gear, change gear, change gear, check your mirrors, murder a prostitute, change gear, change gear, murder. That's a lot of effort in a day."

His comments provoked a furious reaction from victim support groups and road hauliers who demanded that the presenter make a public apology.

Ofcom accepted that the remarks "could shock some viewers" but ruled that Clarkson was "clearly using exaggeration to make a joke, albeit not to everyone's taste. "The comments should therefore have been seen in that context," it said. "It is often the case that humour can cause offence. To restrict humour only to material which does not cause offence would be an unnecessary restriction of freedom of expression."

Ofcom also cleared an episode of the BBC One sitcom Harry and Paul, which featured an upper-class character, played by Harry Enfield, encouraging his Northern friend to mate with his neighbour's Filipino maid. The sketch prompted the Philippine ambassador in London, Edgardo B Espiritu, to write to the chair of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons, accusing the pair of racism.

However, Ofcom ruled that there was "no intention" to ridicule women or the Filipino community. "The target of the humour was very clearly the upper-class character played by Harry Enfield who holds such a deluded view of his social superiority that he treats individuals with lower social status with ridiculous disdain," it ruled.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Christian words deleted from influential British dictionary

We read:

"For generations, schoolchildren have been captivated by the magic of nature, gripped by tales from British history and fascinated by learning about our Christian traditions. Today, however, crucial words used to describe these traditional topics have been stripped from an influential children's dictionary in favour of more 'modern' terms. Among the entries which have disappeared from the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary are disciple, coronation, empire, piglet and acorn. In their place come the likes of MP3 player, broadband, biodegradable, committee and celebrity.

Publishers Oxford University Press say the dictionary needs to evolve to reflect the fact that Britain has become a modern, multicultural, multi-faith society in which fewer children grow up in rural environments. But academics and headteachers said the changes to the 10,000-entry volume - aimed at over-sevens - would deprive a new generation of links with their heritage. The changes were highlighted by a mother-of-four who noticed that words like moss and fern had vanished from the latest edition while helping her son with her homework.

Lisa Saunders, from County Down, Northern Ireland, compared six editions since the 1970s and was horrified to discover that a whole range of words relating to Christianity, nature and British history had been axed over the years. 'The Christian faith still has a strong following,' she said. 'To eradicate so many words associated with Christianity will have a big effect on the numerous primary schools who use it.'....

And Anthony Seldon, the master of Wellington College, a leading private school in Berkshire, said: 'I am stunned that words like "saint", "buttercup", "heather"and "sycamore" have all gone and I grieve it. 'I think as well as being descriptive, the Oxford Junior Dictionary has to be prescriptive too, suggesting not just words that are used but words that should be used.

"Eric Zemmour, a French journalist who writes for Le Figaro, is at the center of a storm of controversy following comments he made on television November 13. Zemmour, born in Paris, is from a family of Jewish Berbers who left Algeria after the Algerian war.

Zemmour's main point was that there are different races distinguishable by skin color. Both the French paper press and the blogosphere have had a field day with this story, accusing him of resurrecting the Nazi theory of race, of being a "Lepeniste", of making comments that emit a nauseating odor, of being a promoter of ethnic separationism, of triggering a "civil war" between Jews, blacks, and Arabs, of expressing the malaise of French "Negrophobes", of seeking a return of "a white France", etc...

What the naughty man said was: "What interests me in this story - I'll be quick, is that I have the feeling that the consecration of races during the period of the Nazis and before has been replaced by a denial of the existence of races. And to me, one is as ridiculous as the other. What do you mean they don't exist? You can clearly see that they do exist!"

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Incorrect British jelly to be axed after 144 years on the shelves

We read:

"Robertson's jam, a breakfast table fixture for generations and a symbol of controversy over its use of the Golly character, is being axed. The makers of the jam have decided to concentrate on another brand, Hartley's, instead. Robertson's has been part of British life since 1864, when the business was started by Scottish grocer James Robertson behind his shop in Paisley.

The Golly character, a black-faced minstrel doll with colourful clothes, was on the label for the best part of a century. It spawned badge collections and dolls but was condemned by some as an offensive caricature of black people, based on slave dolls. The Golly was axed from TV adverts in 1988, and disappeared from the labels in 2002.

Now Premier Foods, which bought the brand last year, is getting rid of Robertson's jam, although Golden Shred marmalade will survive. A spokesman said: 'We took a decision that Robertson's and Hartley's were similar products and so the focus has been on Hartley's.' Robertson's will go by the end of next year, said the industry magazine The Grocer.

"The Oscar aspirations of Kate Winslet, the British star, have been threatened by critics' claims that nudity in her latest film, The Reader, has "trivialised" the story it tells about the Nazi Holocaust.

Winslet, who plays a former concentration camp guard with a voracious sexual appetite, was believed to be a certainty for her sixth Oscar nomination next month until an attack by Charlie Finch, an influential New York critic, spread across the internet and raised doubts among Oscar voters in Hollywood.

The furore began at a private screening last week hosted by Stephen Daldry, the film's British director. Finch, who contributes to several New York newspapers and magazines, accused him of creating a "dishonest and manipulative" vision of Nazi war crimes and postwar Germany which, because of its sex and stars - including Ralph Fiennes - would "crowd out" many better films about the subject.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Atheist hate-speech in the Washington State capitol

Apparently the capitol traditionally included a Christmas tree and a nativity scene. There has been all sorts of grumbing about that from the Left in recent years, however, so this year an atheist group was allowed to put up a sign as well. Fair enough.

What is chiefly in contention is the hate-filled content of the atheist group's sign. They sure will not create much respect for the atheist viewpoint. The sign reads: "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."

Why insult the vast majority of the population so egregiously? Most people have some religious beliefs even if they don't go to church. And they are going to be very unimpressed to be told that they have hard hearts and enslaved minds. The atheist group could have put up many other more thoughtful and less insulting messages -- such as (say) "If God exists how come nobody can say where he is?" or "If there is a God why does he permit so much suffering?"

Committed Christians do of course have answers to challenges like that but even they do get troubled by such questions at times. And for less religious people, such questions might be decisive.

Clearly, the atheists concerned are just Leftist haters and spewing their hate against Christians is the only thing that really matters to them. They clearly have no interest in "winning friends and influencing people". But not all atheists are Leftist haters. We read:

"On Friday, some nonbelievers said they had very mixed feelings about the sign. Michael Amini, a University of Washington student and president of the Secular Student Union, says he's glad to see nonbelievers represented among the Capitol displays. But he doesn't like the sign's wording, saying it's inflammatory and divisive.

"Right now, the atheists are the least trusted minority in the United States," said Amini, who believes the foundation should spend its time and money trying to show people that atheists are "decent people, rational and sane, with legitimate world views. This sign does not send that message."

When I began my university studies in 1964, our introductory psychology texbooks told us that IQ research had begun late in the 19th century and that in the seven decades since, the reality and importance of IQ had become well established. IQ was in fact regarded as one of the most important contributions to knowledge made by psychology. And one thing that had emerged from those decades of research was that there was a very large gap between the average IQ of blacks and whites -- though it was also pointed out that a few individual blacks were highly intelligent.

Then there came the great political and cultural upheavals of the 60s, which resulted in a huge rise to power of the cultural Left, with their refusal to acknowledge anything that did not suit them. And, like all Leftists since the French revolution, "all men are equal" was their creed.

But if all men are equal so are all races. So the most well-established finding in psychology had to go. And various attempts were made to explain away the black/white IQ gap. If YOU think YOU can explain it away, be sure that lots of others have thought of that idea long ago.

And the criticisms did result in some advances. It was confirmed, for instance, that nutrition could in extreme cases play a small role -- explaining up to 5 points of the 15 point IQ gap. But most of the criticisms were shown to be wrong by further research. The IQ gap is now one of the most scrutinized findings in the whole of psychology and the gap still remains -- no matter what other factors you allow for. Prof. Richard Lynn has recently summarized the findings on the topic in a small book. I did a brief review of the book here.

So the objections to the finding are political, not scientific. Therefore THE FINDING MUST NOT BE MENTIONED. But an economics Professor has recently decided to ignore that:

"An economics professor from Loyola University in New Orleans traveled to Baltimore's Loyola last week to give a lecture, and everybody's been apologizing ever since. Everybody, that is, but the professor, Walter Block, who chalks up the flap to political correctness.

College officials have declined to elaborate on just what Block said. Apparently it was so offensive that they can't even bear to say why they're offended.

He said he'd told the audience that differences in IQ might account for why blacks and women earn about 30 percent less than their white, male counterparts.

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Hundreds rally at UW against anti-homosexual-marriage column in campus newspaper

We read:

"About 200 people attended a rally Friday at the University of Washington to protest an anti-gay marriage column that ran in the student newspaper, The Daily. Protesters say language in the column, including a reference to bestiality, coupled with the accompanying image of a man standing next to a sheep, amounted to hate speech. But speakers differed on whether the paper should be censured.

Ana Mari Cauce, the UW's dean of arts and sciences, talked about her own struggles coming out as a lesbian and the hurt she felt in reading the column. "But the antidote to free speech is more free speech," she said. "I am thankful that I am living in a country where everyone has the right to express their opinions."

On the other hand, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) this week passed a resolution demanding the paper apologize. However, the editor-in-chief of The Daily, Sarah Jeglum, said this week she stands behind the decision to run the column and isn't planning any sort of apology. In a Friday column, Jeglum said she'd learned "Free speech is for everyone. It's not just for the majority, and it's not just for the minority."

That difference of opinion, if not resolved, could lead to a showdown between the editors of the paper and the elected student-body representatives who sit on the publications board which oversees The Daily. Dave Iseminger, GPSS vice president, hinted at such a showdown when he said at the rally that lacking an apology, his group may work to change the composition of the paper's editorial board.

The column concerned was a perfectly rational one. Here is an excerpt:

"Race is a biological state; homosexuality is more of an emotional condition, and we should not, for that reason alone, start passing laws condoning it. Being homosexual, like other emotional tendencies, doesn't make someone a bad person, but it's a problem that needs to be dealt with, not denied. Now, there are several major problems with legalizing gay marriage. Once you've legalized gay marriage, why not polygamy, incest, bestiality or any other form of union? If the only criteria is that people love each other, then who says it's wrong for a 70-year-old man to marry 10 underage girls?

"Nintendo has hurriedly reprogrammed a computer game after discovering one of the characters called players "Nigga".

Animal Crossing: Let's Go To The City, designed for children as young as three, had to be altered at the last minute before its release after the racist remark was spotted by reviewers. When players came across Baabara the Sheep she repeatedly uses the word as a nickname in idle conversation. She said: "I almost forgot about you, Nigga. So got any juicy gossip for me, Nigga? Just thinking about it gets me all excited, Nigga."

Animal Crossing is a life-simulation game for children in which players assume the role of a character who recently moved to a house in a small town....

Saturday, December 06, 2008

Is "poor" an insulting term?

This is a small personal anecdote from many years back: I used to be a landlord letting out a few houses that I owned at the time. On one occasion I had a house vacant and put a "To Let" advertisement in the newspaper. The advertisement stated the amount of the rent, the suburb, a brief description of the house and a statement that a bond equivalent to four week's rent was required in addition to the rent before a tenant could move in. All of which was customary in that time and place.

One caller said he liked the sound of the house but that he wouldn't have all the money needed until payday so could I hold it for him until then?

There was something irritating in his approach, however, a sort of arrogance. So I said, No, I didn't want poor people in my house.

He was outraged and claimed that he was not poor -- even though he had no money. He went on to abuse me and even called back later to abuse me again. I guess my frankness was a bit brutal but how much better it would be if people could face and accept reality. I may in fact have been instrumental in getting him to start saving his money.

"Horrid Henry splits parents between those who love the books, and those who hate them. Some think that Henry is a bad influence, and that he causes children to behave like him. Others hate the fact that the stories don't have a moral: Henry doesn't always get his comeuppance or realise the consequences of his behaviour. One recent thread on mumsnet included the comment, "We do NOT do Horrid Henry, nor will we," while another parent bemoaned how her son's behaviour "plummets" when he reads them.

These parents are not alone - the books have not yet been published in the US for similar reasons (publishers, say author Francesca Simon, thought they were "too horrid!"). However, one brave publisher has now taken them on for publication next April.

But despite all this, the main point (and it's a huge one) in Henry's favour is that children love Henry, and his cohorts, Moody Margaret, Rude Ralph and Beefy Bert. "He's a funny, naughty child, and he's got a kind of perfect brother, and it's like Henry is his brother's devil," says my daughter, in an attempt to explain the appeal. My feeling is that pretty much anything which encourages reading has to be a good thing, especially when it comes to boys, who are often difficult to persuade. But I also feel that many children definitely get a thrill from reading about a child who behaves badly. He does what many of them wouldn't, but that isn't a bad thing. Fantasy - books, films and theatre - can be enjoyed without having to copy the protagonists!

Simon is thrilled that her books have struck such a chord with the 6-10 age-group, but disappointed that some are unhappy with her hero. "I have received letters that are tear-stained with gratitude because parents are so thrilled that their children are reading. That makes me flushed with pleasure," she says. But she is a little defensive when the question of Henry's "badness" is brought up.

"He does nothing that every child hasn't done," she claims, adding that when people say their child's behaviour has been affected by the stories, she takes it with a pinch of salt. "Kids have always fought - it goes back to Cain and Abel. Yes, Henry calls his brother names and fights, but he also reflects something very truthful about children's lives. That's the humour of family life, which is full of disasters."...

"As a writer, I was very thrilled to be published," says Simon. "I didn't see beyond that, and I still an very surprised that they have been so successful." But she adds that she understands why they work, not only because there isn't much for the 6-10 age group, but because, she says, Horrid Henry and his younger brother, Perfect Peter, are "the two sides of everybody."

Friday, December 05, 2008

Free Speech or Hate Speech? University Sued Over Firing for Anti-Homosexual Article

We read:

"The firing of a college administrator over her criticism of gay rights has sparked a debate about free speech and whether universities have the right to regulate what employees say outside of their jobs. Crystal Dixon filed a lawsuit Monday in federal court seeking to be reinstated to her University of Toledo job, which she lost after writing in a newspaper column that gay rights can't be compared to civil rights because homosexuality is a choice.

"I take great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are 'civil rights victims,'" Dixon wrote in an online edition of the Toledo Free Press on April 18. "Here's why. I cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman."

Two weeks later, Dixon was fired as the school's associate vice president for human resources. School officials said her views contradicted university policies, according to the lawsuit. Though Dixon's attorneys say other school administrators were not punished for expressing their opinions, the public university defends its actions.

"We have asserted from the beginning that Ms. Dixon was in a position of special sensitivity as associate vice president for human resources and this issue is not about freedom of speech, but about her ability to perform that job given her statements," university spokesman Larry Burns said in a statement. Dixon did not mention in the column that she worked at the university..

"It comes down to whether you're speaking as an employee of the university or as a private citizen," said Brian Rooney, a spokesman for Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., which is representing Dixon. "If you're speaking as a private citizen, your speech is protected." The university would have been within its rights to discipline her if she had stated she was a school administrator, Rooney said. The nonprofit Christian law firm says its mission includes "defending the traditional family and challenging special rights for homosexuals." "Where is the so-called free expression of ideas and tolerance that universities so adamantly defend?" said Richard Thompson, president of the law center.

What the university is saying seems to boil down to a claim that being critical of homosexuality is a sign of bad character. If you believe that the Bible is the word of God, I guess that makes God a bad character too.

"A report was published that said the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) should get out of the hate speech business. The CHRC commissioned the report in the wake of the unseemly attempts by the Islamic Congress of Canada to find a Human rights Commission, federal or provincial, who would uphold its complaint against Maclean's magazine for a 2006 cover story entitled Why the Future Belongs to Islam. The CHRC and both the Alberta and B.C. Human Rights Commission refused, leading to some serious questions about such bodies dealing with the issue.

The principal recommendation of the report, written by University of Windsor law professor Richard Moon, is that, "Section 13 (of the CHRC Act) be repealed so that censorship of . . . hate speech is dealt with exclusively by the criminal law."

The Criminal Code prohibits the willful promotion of hatred. The Supreme Court of Canada has had a go at defining what that means in a few cases, notably in R. v. Keegstra, in 1990. There, it agreed that the Code imposed a difficult burden on the Crown: to prove that the speaker or writer, in his heart of hearts, desired to promote hatred and foresaw that outcome. More specifically, Chief Justice Dickson said, ". . . the word 'promotes' indicates active support or instigation. Indeed, the French version of the offence uses the verb 'fomenter,' which in English means to foment or stir up. In 'promotes' we thus have a word that indicates more than simple encouragement or advancement."

Is the American national anthem politically incorrect? From the 4th verse:Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

Mohammad

The truth can be offensive to some but it must be said

"HATE SPEECH" is free speech: The U.S. Supreme Court stated the general rule regarding protected speech in Texas v. Johnson (109 S.Ct. at 2544), when it held: "The government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable." Federal courts have consistently followed this. Said Virginia federal district judge Claude Hilton: "The First Amendment does not recognize exceptions for bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance or ideas or matters some may deem trivial, vulgar or profane."

Even some advocacy of violence is protected by the 1st Amendment. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously that speech advocating violent illegal actions to bring about social change is protected by the First Amendment "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

The double standard: Atheists can put up signs and billboards saying that Christianity is wrong and that is hunky dory. But if a Christian says that homosexuality is wrong, that is attacked as "hate speech"

One for the militant atheists to consider: "...it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" -- Thomas Jefferson

"I think no subject should be off-limits, and I regard the laws in many Continental countries criminalizing Holocaust denial as philosophically repugnant and practically useless – in that they confirm to Jew-haters that the Jews control everything (otherwise why aren’t we allowed to talk about it?)" -- Mark Steyn

Voltaire's most famous saying was actually a summary of Voltaire's thinking by one of his biographers rather than something Voltaire said himself. Nonetheless it is a wholly admirable sentiment: "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I am of a similar mind.

The traditional advice about derogatory speech: "Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you". Apparently people today are not as emotionally robust as their ancestors were.

Why conservatives should not respond to Leftist abuse: "Never wrestle with a pig, because you'll both just get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

The KKK were members of the DEMOCRATIC party. Google "Klanbake" if you doubt it

A phobia is an irrational fear, so the terms "Islamophobic" and "homophobic" embody a claim that the people so described are mentally ill. There is no evidence for either claim. Both terms are simply abuse masquerading as diagnoses and suggest that the person using them is engaged in propaganda rather than in any form of rational or objective discourse.

Leftists often pretend that any mention of race is "racist" -- unless they mention it, of course. But leaving such irrational propaganda aside, which statements really are racist? Can statements of fact about race be "racist"? Such statements are simply either true or false. The most sweeping possible definition of racism is that a racist statement is a statement that includes a negative value judgment of some race. Absent that, a statement is not racist, for all that Leftists might howl that it is. Facts cannot be racist so nor is the simple statement of them racist. Here is a statement that cannot therefore be racist by itself, though it could be false: "Blacks are on average much less intelligent than whites". If it is false and someone utters it, he could simply be mistaken or misinformed.

Categorization is a basic human survival skill so racism as the Left define it (i.e. any awareness of race) is in fact neither right nor wrong. It is simply human

Whatever your definition of racism, however, a statement that simply mentions race is not thereby racist -- though one would think otherwise from American Presidential election campaigns. Is a statement that mentions dogs, "doggist" or a statement that mentions cats, "cattist"?

If any mention of racial differences is racist then all Leftists are racist too -- as "affirmative action" is an explicit reference to racial differences

Was Abraham Lincoln a racist? "You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated." -- Spoken at the White House to a group of black community leaders, August 14th, 1862

Gimlet-eyed Leftist haters sometimes pounce on the word "white" as racist. Will the time come when we have to refer to the White House as the "Full spectrum of light" House?

The spirit of liberty is "the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." and "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." -- Judge Learned Hand

Mostly, a gaffe is just truth slipping out

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

It seems a pity that the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus is now little known. Remember, wrote the Stoic thinker, "that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgment that they are so. So when any one makes you angry, know that it is your own thought that has angered you. Wherefore make it your endeavour not to let your impressions carry you away."

"Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of reason?" -- English poet John Milton (1608-1674) in Areopagitica

Leftists can try to get you fired from your job over something that you said and that's not an attack on free speech. But if you just criticize something that they say, then that IS an attack on free speech

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) could have been speaking of much that goes on today when he said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

I despair of the ADL. Jews have enough problems already and yet in the ADL one has a prominent Jewish organization that does its best to make itself offensive to Christians. Their Leftism is more important to them than the welfare of Jewry -- which is the exact opposite of what they ostensibly stand for! Jewish cleverness seems to vanish when politics are involved. Fortunately, Christians are true to their saviour and have loving hearts. Jewish dissatisfaction with the myopia of the ADL is outlined here. Note that Foxy was too grand to reply to it.

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here